


Heartstrings

by sunnynights



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Forgiveness, Gen, Healing, Memories, Violins, music therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25448842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunnynights/pseuds/sunnynights
Summary: To learn is to grow and heal. Lucretia takes up the violin.
Relationships: The Director | Lucretia & Kravitz, The Director | Lucretia & Taako
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Heartstrings

The Director let her tears roll down her cheeks and drop onto the rosewood body of Johann’s violin. He got what he always wanted: his songs were heard, he wasn’t forgotten. But he was still gone, one of the countless lives lost to the Hunger.

She wiped her eyes quickly as a black void opened before her, sliced into existence by a large scythe. The reaper stepped through, standing tall in his black-suited human form.

“Hello, Lucretia. I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“No, no, I’m just cleaning up,” She gestured at the stacks of paper and half-filled boxes around the room. “Turning over a new leaf, if you will.”

Kravitz nodded politely. “I wish the Bureau of Benevolence all the best.”

“Thank you. How is your line of work?”

“It’s been good. Having Lup and Barry is,” He smiled. “Different. But not unpleasant.”

Lucretia tried the curb the desperation in her voice as the question spilled out. “And Taako?”

“He’s doing well. He’s happy,”

She deflated slightly. “So he’s still not talking to me.”

Kravitz pursed his lips, not sure how to respond. He didn’t really know Lucretia. She seemed bright, strong, dignified. Maybe in another life they could have been friends. In this life, she hurt the man that meant more to him than anything, and he couldn’t look past that.

“Angus,” he said, quickly changing the subject. “He left a book here and asked me to get it for him.”

“Right, it’s there on the desk.”

Kravitz scooped up the book and angled his scythe in preparation to make his exit. “That’s a nice violin, by the way,” he remarked.

Lucretia looked down, realizing she still clutched the instrument tightly. “It belonged to a friend. Do you play?”

“A little. I’ve been trying to get back into it.” He took the violin as Lucretia held it out to him and gently tucked it under his chin. With his other hand, he conjured a bone-white bow. After a few seconds of tuning, Kravitz, almost statuesque in his deep concentration, began to play.

The music that poured out of the violin beautiful, almost hauntingly so. Every note tugged at her soul. Sometimes it was tumultuous like the rippling Astral Sea, other times it had the slow wistfulness of a final goodbye. When she opened her eyes, she found them welling with tears again.

Kravitz dropped his hands to his sides. “I was much better a few thousand years ago,”

“Can you teach me?” Lucretia blurted out.

“Oh,” Kravitz blinked, handing back the violin. “I guess I can show you the basics.”

And so the next day, the reaper was in her office again with his own instrument. He was a patient and knowledgeable instructor, but it came time for Lucretia to play, it was...awful. She wasn’t used to being bad at something The strings bit her fingertips and a stroke of the bow filled her ears with discordance. Each screeching note was like the crackling redaction of the Voidfish.

But she kept at it, the next day and the day after that. She kept playing until Kravitz smiled without wincing, until his encouragement became genuine praise. Until the bow moved like a quill, spilling words both wretched and divine across a page. Until she bent and callused and molded to the instrument. It was hard work. Not like writing or painting, skills she had honed but always had a natural affinity for. Her music didn’t have the finesse of a hundred ghostwritten books or the casual grace of a portrait of her friends on a beach. This was like learning to lead, to speak her mind, to make difficult choices. It was raw and frustrating and meaningful all at once.

She heard Lup as she played. Lucretia’s breath caught in her chest as the century-old memory came to her. Lup was just as bad when she started at the Legato Conservatory. But she learned and practiced and flourish to create something beautiful at Barry’s side. Lup played fiercely because she loved fiercely and lived fiercely and how could Lucretia erase her just like that?

Kravitz watched her progress, he knew she worked hard, but he didn’t really know. He couldn’t. He didn’t see the nights spent alone fumbling over the same line again and again, throwing down the sheet music and pushing over the stand, crying hot tears, but always returning to the altar of the violin. This was her repentance, to use these hands that once destroyed to create, to play a note for every memory she had stolen and person she had hurt. Music is a story, and in the hands of a chronicler the violin sang of hurt and healing, apologies and forgiveness, shame and change, leadership and growth.

Lucretia finished the piece, bow lifting off the final note. Kravitz grinned proudly and clapped, his applause joined by another’s: Taako’s. He leaned against the office doorway, silent until now.

Kravitz shot up like he’d been caught in another man’s bed. Taako ignored him. He walked up to Lucretia, eyes barely meeting hers, his head held high as he spoke.

“That was pretty good.”

“Thank you," she said hurriedly, not wanting to miss the first kind words that had left his mouth since the Day of Story and Song.

"How long have you been at this?"

"Just a few weeks."

"Well, that explains where he's been." Taako nodded towards Kravitz, whose eyes apprehensively flicked between his student and his boyfriend.

"Taako," Lucretia started.

"Oh, I have something for you." Taako reached into his robes. "Just had them lying around, you know how it does, and I thought I might as well give them to you." He presented a small box with a neat blue bow.

Lucretia took it with the care of receiving something made of glass. "Thank you."

"Bones, take me home please."

Kravitz gathered his things and slipped his hand into Taako's. As the scythe opened a void, Taako turned back towards Lucretia.

"Taako's Amazing School of Magic has a music room if you ever want to practice there. Good luck with your violin and your new Bureau or whatever."

They disappeared into the darkness. Lucretia stood frozen for several seconds before tearing into the box. Packed in a neat row were a dozen fresh, crisp, fragrant elderflower macarons. Her favorite. Cooking was Taako's music, and this offering was the first step towards his forgiveness. She stuffed one in her mouth as she sat down before her sheet music and played once more with feeling.

**Author's Note:**

> “these are a chronicler’s hands!”  
> -me trying to teach myself the guitar for over a year but all I’ve learned are like three chords


End file.
